Zhang Yimou to Receive Double Honors at Asian Film Awards

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Shayda,” a breakout indie movie from Noora Niasari, and Kitty Green’s high-temperature drama “The Royal Hotel” were named best film winners at the annual SPA Awards, presented by the Screen Producers Australia association. The ceremony took place Thursday at Queensland’s Gold Coast, during the annual Screen Forever conference. The event was hosted by actor and comedian Matt Okine. Production company Werner Film, which this week announced its acquisition by the BBC, took three awards including the coveted Media Super Production Business of the year prize. “It’s clear that our production community continues to thrive in the face of a rapidly changing landscape.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Fashion, East-West Asian identities, corporate espionage and romance are on the agenda in “Morning, Paris!,” a new mini-series project being pitched at Series Mania by veteran filmmaker Quentin Lee (“The People I’ve Slept With,” “White Frog”). “’Morning, Paris!’ is a heartfelt comedy about a young modern BIPOC Canadian woman discovering herself in the most romantic city in the world,” says Lee. “Or put another way, it is a limited television series about an aspiring female fashion designer from Vancouver who ends up in Paris Fashion week with a very unlikely companion because she wants to spy on her boss on whom she has a crush.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Richard Roxburgh, star of hit Netflix show “Rake” and “Elvis,” stars in “The Correspondent,” a fact-based thriller. He portrays Peter Greste, the veteran Australian TV news reporter who was kidnapped in Cairo in 2013 while reporting for Al Jazeera. Production of “The Correspondent” wrapped in Sydney, Australia after being directed by Kriv Stenders, who enjoyed major success in Australia with “Red Dog” and also directed hit “Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan.” The film is based on Greste’s memoir “The First Casualty” and has an adapted screenplay by Peter Duncan (“Rake,” “Operation Buffalo”).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Hollywood producer and financier Joseph Cohen (“Brokeback Mountain,” “12 Years A Slave,” “Sicario,” “La La Land”) is launching a new company in Hong Kong called MediaRealm Advisors Asia. It will provide consulting services to Asia-based institutional and professional investors looking to invest in American Entertainment Investors mainstream Hollywood movie projects. He is joined in the venture by Hong Kong and Tokyo based Adam Guy Orlebar Garrett.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Pleasant Outcast,” a 10-part Korean series that is set to appear at Canneseries next month, is a companion piece to “Concrete Utopia,” the hit film from last year that was selected as South Korea’s Oscar contender. Both the Lotte Cultureworks series and “Concrete Utopia,” a dystopian drama-thriller set in a post-apocalyptic Seoul, are adapted from best-selling webtoon “Cheerful Outcast,” by Kim Soong Nyung. The film was frequently compared to William Golding’s seminal novel from the 1954 “Lord of the Flies” and its 1964 film adaptation. Using the first part of the webtoon, the series follows Dong-hyun, a high school junior, who barely survives his day-to-day bullying at school.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Escaping Man,” a Chinese drama feature about a man dragged into a kidnap plot, heads the FilMart slate of Hong Kong-based sales agency Autumn Sun Company. The protagonist is a man who spent 20 years in jail after being falsely accused of rape. After his release, he intends to confront the woman, but instead falls for her again — to the point that she is able to manipulate him into kidnapping the child for which she is the nanny.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Peter Chan Ho-sun has assembled a starry cast headed by Zhang Ziyi and box office sensation Lei Jiayin for his new feature film “She Has No Name.” The film, which recently completed principal photography, probes the progress of women’s rights in China. “One woman’s suffering gives rise to the revolution of women’s social rights in China,” reads a tagline.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Thailand is poised to get serious about its commitment to the film industry, and plans to launch a major new body, the Thailand Creative Culture Agency, with a budget of THB7 billion ($200 million). Long a destination for Hollywood, China and India productions, and currently playing host to the lensing of Season 3 of “The White Lotus,” Thailand has many of the elements that could contribute to building a major film industry. These include diverse locations, skilled crews, studio facilities and a location production, or incentive, scheme.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Chan Tai-lee, the screenwriter of many of the Ip Man martial arts action films, has written and directed upcoming action film “Fight for Tomorrow.” Mandarin Motion Pictures, which backed the film and is handling international rights sales, is using this week’s FilMart to launch the picture to international buyers. The production was assisted with finance from the Hong Kong Film Development Fund.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief COVID, changing money flows and a new superpower Cold War of sorts may have, over the past few years, helped to reduce the connections between the film and TV industries of China and the rest of the world — so, will the 2024 edition of FilMart, whose organizers continue to claim bridgehead status, be the market to increase those connections? Candas Yeung, the Trade Development Council associate director who takes over as head of FilMart this year, says that visitor and exhibitor numbers have crept up again this year — to an anticipated 7,500 and 715, respectively — and that fully 40% of market participants hail from mainland China. “That’s a pretty significant proportion and they are very active in the market, both buying and selling, and making some announcements,” Yeung says.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Film projects to be produced by Andrew Lau (“Infernal Affairs,” “Initial D”) and Han Sanping, the former head of China Film Corp., are among the new in-development titles that grace the FilMart slate of Hong Kong studio Media Asia. The Peter Lam-controlled studio is also poised, at an event within FilMart on Monday, to detail its new alliance with China’s Alibaba Pictures Group. Lau is producing “Behind the Scene,” a book-to-film adaptation to be directed by Lee Kwong-yiu (“Insanity”) in which four friends uncover a meticulously planned murder that is carefully disguised as a kidnapping. Suspicions fall on a bank president who is involved in counterfeiting. Han is aiming to produce “Fading Tracks,” another crime title that is also adapted from a novel.

Asian Film Awards. The 17th edition of the prizes was held at the Xiqu Centre, part of the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong. While “Evil Does Not Exist” and Korean blockbuster “12.12: The Day” had dominated the nominations with six each, including those in the best film category, the prizes on Sunday were much more evenly distributed.

Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist was awarded the Best Film award at the Asian Film Awards this evening in Hong Kong. Scroll down for the full list of winners. 

Naman Ramachandran Indian sales outfit Indywood Distribution Network has sold Rupesh Paul’s “Kamasutra – The Revenge” wide ahead of Hong Kong’s film rights market FilMart. Starring Sherlyn Chopra, Milind Gunaji and Gajendra Chauhan, and produced by San2Creations, the film follows two princesses – one who is robbed of her dreams when forced to accept a middle-aged king as her husband, and another thirsty for revenge. Indywood has sold the film to Twin (Japan, all rights); A2 Filmes (Latin America TV/VOD); Filmbridge (Mongolia, all rights); Pioneer Film (Philippines, all rights) and RFT Films (U.K./Ireland, theatrical).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Oscar contenders and Berlin prize-winners will be among the European films being represented by visiting companies to FilMart that are making use of the European Film Promotion umbrella stand within the annual Hong Kong market. In total 29 European film sales companies are making the trip, including more than a dozen from France under the Unifrance banner. Prominent rights brokers include Charades, Goodfellas, Fandango and Filmax.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief This month’s Hong Kong International Film Festival will showcase over 190 films from 62 countries and regions, including five world premieres, and 64 Asian premieres. Running 12 days (March 28 – April 8), the festival will open with the Asian premiere of local director Ray Yeung’s “All Shall Be Well,” which won the Teddy Award at the recent Berlin festival.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief A year after announcing the ambitious project, The Philippines ABS-CBN is now in production on new series “The Bagman.” Filming began in Manila on Feb. 25. “The Bagman” is a spin-off from the original, locally-produced digital series “Bagman” that was aimed at the Filipino audience.

Veteran Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou will receive both the Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2023 Highest-Grossing Asian Film Award for his last feature Full River Red at this week’s Asian Film Awards. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Warner Bros. is to handle the Southeast Asia theatrical release of Philippines-produced drama film “Under Parallel Skies.” The picture will have its world premiere this weekend as part of the Asian Film Awards in Hong Kong. Directed by Sigrid Bernardo, “Under Parallel Skies” follows the story of a Thai bachelor, portrayed by major local star Win Metawin, who travels to Hong Kong in search of his missing mother.

Angelique Jackson Queen Latifah will return to host the 55th annual NAACP Image Awards after emceeing the ceremony for the first time last year. The NAACP also announced that writer, poet and activist Amanda Gorman will be honored with the prestigious Chairman’s Award, while this year’s Vanguard Award will go to costume designer, designer and tastemaker June Ambrose in honor of her decades as a pioneer in the fashion industry.